Pope Francis 'tells sinner she should be allowed Communion' [Phony news story ?]

[CWN_News]

Reports that Pope Francis had advised a woman that she should receive Communion, despite a divorce and remarriage, have caused a flurry of corrections and clarifications, including a …

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[seagal]

In my opinion it would mean everything and my faith would be deeply shakened and challenged.

Christ said He would guide the Church and defend it from error, and if error still occured that would make Christ wrong, and therefore not God.

Now I understand the Pope isnt required to be perfect, but if he proclaims that someone who’s married to a married person can receive ommunion, that is a matter of Faith and it would apply to the whole Church. It is said that never happen and would be impossible.

What the pope said to one person would not apply to the whole church. As Jimmy Akin pointed out in his blog , he could have made a determination on her particular case from details we are not privy to. He could have found that she is indeed in a position to take communion if, for example, she and her husband are living as brother and sister.

This IS a matter of faith and morals, though. And if he taught it to this woman, then.he actually believes that. It would then apply to the entire Church. Isnt thats whats required for “ex cathedra?” Of course if you disagree with his statement you’d say it was in error and not ex cathedra, but the critieria has been met if this news account is true. Any attempts after that would simply be sophistry and mental gymnastics to preserve the teachings.

You’re misunderstanding what it means for the pope to teach infallibly. He would have to issue an encyclical or papal bull, and he never does that purely on his own but always in consultation with the college of cardinals. The *worst case scenario *here is that Pope Francis made a mistake because he’s only human. And this would not be the worst mistake a pope ever made. And the church Jesus founded is still standing, because it does not depend on the actions or sayings of one man.

 

[Thorns]

. And the church Jesus founded is still standing, because it does not depend on the actions or sayings of one man.

Then why even have a pope?

 

[Teelynn]

It would behoove the Holy Father to make some sort of a statement clarifying Church teaching. That would be all that is needed.

 

[McCall1981]

It would behoove the Holy Father to make some sort of a statement clarifying Church teaching. That would be all that is needed.

YES, I would be immensely relieved if he did this. Realistically though, I think the best we can even hope for is a statement like this from Card. Muller (or someone like that). Though even that I think is unlikely.

 

[shelby_sun]

First thing that jumps to me out of this article : " the Pope called the woman" OK so you are expecting me to believe that the Pope… Let me repeat “the POPE” grabbed a telephone (yes as if the pope has the time to do personal phone calls to individual lay people that he hardly know) and called this woman who he barely know??? I believe that as much as if my neighbor would tell me that Barack Obama grabbed a phone to tell him that the federal reserve is going to pass him million dollar check.

I m sorry but that besides being something written in a secular media that is constantly exaggerating and writing wrong thongs about the pope, makes absolutely no sense. Since when head if states called over the phone regular people to chat? Do you actually really believe that the pope is going to tell someone in a conversation OK go and have communion? I think that Obama calling my neighbor to say that a check from the federal reserve is on its way is more credible than this.

I am sorry, but where have you been? It has been known for awhile now that the Pope would and has do something like this. What people are failing to remember is that this Pope is a Jesuit, which is extremely different to other Popes in how his lives his faith. Some of you people really need to take the time to study The Jesuit and how they live their Catholic faith.

Of course, I cannot prove anything I say, but I literally just spoke to a Jesuit priest at the Jesuit school I work at and told him about the conversation going on and he thought it was great if the Pope actually told the woman that. They understand the very hard position that divorced people are put in sometimes.Those who are not divorced simply do not understand that there are many reasons people divorce and no one knows that better than God, certainly not many “good” Catholics. My parents were married for 30 years before they divorced. They tried for 5 years to work things out but just didn’t. My mother was insulted that the Church would have her annul her marriage, basically wiping away the life and children they shared. This is something the Jesuits understand.

It angers the priest I work with when I tell them some of the judgement and attitudes I read on this site. They feel it in no way reflexes God’s way or is at all Christ like.

 

[Veridical16]

The man’s comment directly contradicts what the woman herself said. I am more inclined to believe early reports of the 1st hand account from the woman who actually spoke with the Pope** over the husbands second hand knowledge that very well morphed into something that he wanted the Pope to say rather than what the Pope actually said. **

The HUSBAND was in the room when the woman called.

Both the woman and the man are already suspect characters because she has already admitted more than one public sin, that would put both of them in a state of mortal sin.
Neither of them, are trustworthy and also , the woman’s account just is reckless.

davidgibson.religionnews.com/2014/04/23/pope-francis-really-tell-divorced-woman-take-communion/
If anything, how can one trust the hearsay from a woman who was waiting to hear what she wanted to hear and then showed hesitance of receiving the eucharist because of the publicity. Ya, she goes on a RADIO SHOW to complain about public attention to this story.

These people sound like they don’t even understand Church Teaching, and the significance of the Eucharist.

The woman didn’t bother attending mass, when the priests rightfully told them they can’t receive communion.

Just because you can’t receive communion doesn’t mean you don’t bother going to Mass.
Then she said, that she believed the Pope told her to go and find another parish to take communion, rather than the local one. (Gee if the Pope gave her permission, couldn’t the Pope have told her to tell the Local Parish priest she has permission to go to her current parish?? )

But because it has TOO MUCH PUBLICITY, she is not sure she wants to go to communion.
Does not seem like she really yearns for the Eucharist, just wants to justify **rebuking the priest who told them correct teaching. **

The woman and man who publicly post about their phone call, and then talk to Journalists about the phone call with the Pope knowing it will get press is complaining that the publicity will be a distraction when they attend mass.

Memory over time tends to morph and stories change with retellings. First accounts closest to the event tend to be the most accurate.

This is a modernist presumption drilled to us from 19th century influenced education. Also memory has nothing to do with the reports about the woman, their spotty anecdote has been all over the place and reeks of vindictiveness against their confessor.

From Phone Call Absolutions, to overlooked Annulments??? Absolutions that require no repentance??? To Gossip against the Local Parish Priest’s REPUTATION.

She also revealed an interesting fact: the priest who apparently refused to administer Communion to her, no longer exercises his ministry. He asked to be dispensed from his obligations as priest so he could get married.

People who are in state of mortal sin, will justify other sins, and lying is not precluded. Especially if there is something gain, in respect to justifying one’s living situation.
We all have a choice, conform OUR LIVES to the Truth, or serve our SIN and demand that the truth conform to us.

This is what this couple story is about and their willful sensationalization and abuse of the Pope’s correspondendance is glaring and malicious.

They have no credibility and these lay folk are obnoxious when they try to tyrannize the Christ into accepting their SIN.

We are to conform our lives to the Truth, not the other way around.

 

[YoungTradCath]

I think I read the woman said she is not happy about all this chatter. Well if that is true then please have enough sense not to go blabber on about things on Facebook. I realize her husband did it, but still. Come on.

 

[Dawnia]

Surely you dont believe that stories morph over time or else you’d also have to believe that our Sacred Tradition is also prone to the same type of inaccuracies and retellings.

No. This man wasn’t recounting Sacred Tradition, which if I recall correctly is protected by the Holy Spirit from error. He was recounting a telephone call, which is not protected from error.

The morphing of stories, whether in small details or major facts, is well known. It’s the reason that witnesses are so unreliable. Their stories change, because they forget things or impressions from other sources replace memories. This guy is getting his 15 minutes of fame, it would be very inticing to embellish the story a bit.

 

[Dawnia]

According to an Argentinian poster here on CAF, the local press in Argentina says it was the husband who talked to the Pope (contrary to what the American press says). This of course doesn’t jive with the statement that the Pope “forgave” the woman (what did he do, forgive her through the husband?).

So there is a lot of confusion.

I’ve been looking at a bunch of difference reports and you are right, there is a lot of confusion. In some reports it’s the man who is remarried, in others it’s the wife. Some say he talked to the “Father Bergolio” and others say she did and others say both did.

Apparently journalists no longer fact check.

 

[Megan7]

Exactly. This family’s Priest had no problem commenting on this issue, and being perfectly clear:

"But the pastor of San Lorenzo’s church, Father José Ceschi, said late on Wednesday that the alleged “permission” to receive communion given by the Pope is “absurd.”

Speaking to local radio station La Ocho, Father Ceschi said that “first of all, I am very happy to know that the Pope called someone in San Lorenzo, the Pope surprises with these calls and people is so surprised, and that makes me happy. I do believe in the call, but what is hard to believe is that he gave her permission to go to Communion.”

“The Pope would never do that, is impossible. If he is coming from a previous sacrament and they are living together is absolutely impossible,” Father Ceschi told the radio station.

“What happens is that the Pope, like all bishops and priests, needs to be father, mother and teacher, always with an open heart, while telling things as they are.”

Speaking of his predecessor, who told Jaquelina that she could not receive Communion, the priest noted that “Father Sergio was right, if a previous sacrament of marriage is involved, the Church cannot go beyond what Jesus has taught.”

“If Father Sergio would have given absolution, it would have been like someone writing you a check for an empty bank account, is worthless!” he said.

“Again, I believe that the call happened, I just don’t believe the Pope would go over the head of the [local] bishop — it is absurd,” he reiterated."

ncregister.com/daily-news/doubts-increase-over-popes-reported-phone-call-on-divorce-remarried-communi/#ixzz2zpnGbfYW

Thanks for the link.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Of course there is a difference. So what? Both are adulterers. Jesus is the one who said the sin is in the heart. One being worse than the other is irrelevant. There is a difference between a guy who loses his temper shoots his neighbor and the guy who flew the plane into the World Trade Center, but both are murderers. What is the point?

Look at Matthew 5. According to your argument, we should say, apparently, of the man who curses at his brother and the serial killer, that both of them are “murderers”. We should call a person who curses a murderer. For that is the ONLY way we would be justified in calling the person who divorces and remarries an “adulterer”, since the murder passage in Matt 5 is parallel to the adultery passage.

So I ask you, grandfather: Do you think that when I yell at my son in rage I become a murderer?

Or do you think that Jesus is using language in a particular way to make a point? Do you not think it the slightest bit unjust and mean-spirited for an ordinary Catholic to say that a person who remarries is an adulterer? (In Jesus’s case, it is neither unjust nor mean-spirited, since he is – after all – calling a person who curses a murderer!)

There is no zeal to publicly ostracize anyone.

If there hadn’t been in the past, then divorced Catholics would not be so offended.

The Church’s function is to call sinners to repentance, to preach the gospel of repentance for forgiveness of sin, all sin. If you are wrathful you can be sorry and go to confession. If you left you wife and kids and are living in adultery you can stop doing that and go to confession. You can’t remain in the sin and find forgiveness, whatever the sin happens to be.

Suppose that you were divorced childless, but have five children with your new wife. Do you think that the best procedure here is to “find forgiveness” by leaving your second wife – thereby abandoning your children – or do you think that this situation is truly complicated, and God has forgiveness for you apart from such a drastic action?

Mind you, I respect your point, as a general rule. In Hamlet, Claudius could not repent of killing Hamlet’s father, so long as he held onto the throne he had stolen. But many remarried people have marriages and relationships that are very bound up in serious commitments that have moral standing of their own.

The letter of the law sometimes kills the spirit of the law. When you break up stable families because the father is in a second marriage, that is very much killing the spirit of the law.

You are confused. The pope has no authority to change the constant teaching of the Church and his predecessors in office. Morality does not change. The pope can not say abortion is not a sin. He can not say adultery is not a sin. If any pope denies the constant teaching of the Church on matters of faith and morals he is apostate. Previous popes have addressed what to do if this occurs.

You do realize that you are here stating that the doctrine of infallibility is meaningless, don’t you? If you say that a pope who teaches false moral teaching is apostate once, then no one can trust the teachings of a future pope to be infallible, since THAT pope might be an apostate too. In sum, you are apparently denying any meaningful notion of infallibility.

(Personally, I have no problem with that, since I think the dogma is incoherent. I submit to it, but I don’t think it makes sense.)

But don’t freak out, I don’t think the Church should change moral teachings. It should change policies. Including some policies about the way divorces and remarriages are treated.

 

[Veridical16]

Realistically though, I think the best we can even hope for is a statement like this from Card. Muller (or someone like that). Though even that I think is unlikely.

We don’t need to check and be relieved by Vatican updates. or nCregister updates…

This is just a Scalfari redux. An abuse of the Holy Father’s good will. The ten minute call could have included “Chaste Divorcees can receive communion” and the couple ran with it.

Seems the Holy Father ran into people with the will to justify themselves, rather than seek the truth.
the holy Father is of ignatian spirituality, i do not think he worries as much about these snafus.

If the Pope in his judgment assessed this couple’s situation is not in sin , he would have had the time phone call the Bishop and possibly this couple’s parish priest. He has time to answer these letters. The way of Christ, always emphasizes obedience and the proper channels, and as what was stated earlier, the Pope would not circumvent the Bishop without his knowing. As fr jose alluded to such an absurdity, as he understands context.

This sensational story is just a demonic attempt to cast doubt and mistrust on the Shepherd and create separation from his sheep.

YES, I would be immensely relieved if he did this.

There is nothing to wait to be relieved about. Our Faith is not based on seeing, and because we see something that apparently “scandalizes” is just a distraction. there is nothing to dwell on , pray for the couple, the priests , the reporters, the pope daily, and then we move on, not waiting for relief about our rightful shepherd.

Cardinal Newman’s writings and quotes like this from St. John of the Cross and St. Vincent Ferrer , render these news reports ineffective to me and should all Catholics.

regarding how to avoid being distracted by scandal…

1. The third precaution is very necessary so you may know how to guard yourself in the community against all harm that may arise in regard to the religious.

Many, by not observing it, not only have lost the peace and good of their souls but have fallen and ordinarily continue to fall into many evils and sins.

It is that you very carefully guard yourself against thinking about what happens in the community, and even more against speaking of it, of anything in the past or present concerning a particular religious: nothing about his or her character or conduct or deeds no matter how serious any of this seems. Do not say anything under the color of zeal or of correcting a wrong, unless at the proper time to whomever by right you ought to tell. **Never be scandalized or astonished at anything you happen to see or learn of, endeavoring to preserve your soul in forgetfulness of all that.

1. For, should you desire to pay heed to things, many will seem wrong, even were you to live among angels, because of your not understanding the substance of them**. Take Lot’s wife as an example: Because she was troubled at the destruction of the Sodomites and turned her head to watch what was happening, God punished her by converting her into a pillar of salt [Gn. 19:26]. You are thus to understand God’s will: that even were you to live among devils you should not turn the head of your thoughts to their affairs, but forget these things entirely and strive to keep your soul occupied purely and entirely in God, and not let the thought of this thing or that hinder you from so doing.

And to achieve this, be convinced that in monasteries and communities there is never a lack of stumbling blocks, since** there is never a lack of devils who seek to overthrow the saints;** God permits this in order to prove and try religious.

video sancto on st john of the cross
www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Rj3r30pCI#t=5m43s

ourgardenofcarmel.org/precautions.html

The remedy for this state of bondage is faith, which follows** simple obedience and not argument or reasoning. Argument may be good for the strengthening of intelligence but it is not the true foundation of faith.** Those whose faith rests on reason will lose it when they hear the specious reasoning of antichrist. Those on the contrary who rely on a firm belief founded on obedience will reply ‘away with your arguments! Such reasonings are not the grounds of my faith.’

spiritdaily.net/ferrer.htm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=itKxyV6n4-Y#t=13m05s

we can reason ourselves into worrying about the state of the church, and the pope’s authority and governance based on devilish manipulations and whisperings.
The faith is not dependent on one’s individual perceptions that cause worry.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

My mother was insulted that the Church would have her annul her marriage, basically wiping away the life and children they shared.

My understanding is that the children would continue to exist.

Which is good for me, since otherwise I wouldn’t be responding to anybody at all!

 

[Veridical16]

. And the church Jesus founded is still standing, because it does not depend on the actions or sayings of one man.

They meant, the personal whims and failings of even the pope, are no threat to Christ.
Do you think a man, can all of a sudden declare that Jesus said it’s okay to murder ,
If the Pope said that in a private phone call, (and Popes in the past have murdered) it would not make it right.
It also is reflective of Pope John Paul II infallibly declaring “No women priests” when he said even if he personally wanted it, it was not in the mind of Christ.

The man himself is subject to his imperfect will…and an imperfect will does not threaten the truth entrusted to the Office.

The Pope is the custodian, and he like Peter before him, is there for the sake o f humility of Sheep who sometimes tell themselves they are no longer sheep, but a funny looking person with wool, attempting to hold a shepherds staff…

 

[thomasemmanuel]

I am sorry, but where have you been? It has been known for awhile now that the Pope would and has do something like this. What people are failing to remember is that this Pope is a Jesuit, which is extremely different to other Popes in how his lives his faith. Some of you people really need to take the time to study The Jesuit and how they live their Catholic faith.

I’m personally amazed at our Pope and how he has managed to correct the attitude of our church within such a short span of time, through his sheer compassion and willingness to heed Jesus’ call to accept sinners.Though it is not my place to judge among popes, I’m glad that we have Pope Francis.

 

[anthony022071]

This article is from the dissident National Catholic Reporter,but the correspondent seems to have gotten the story right.

ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/popes-call-woman-raises-questions-divorced-and-remarried

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I saw in an earlier post somebody (I hope not snarking) positing that “oh don’t talk about stories morphing or you’ll cast doubt on Sacred Tradition”. . .

Let me just point out that a society which has pretty much universal literacy (for the last hundred years or so) is quite different from a society which was NOT literate and which thus relied on oral communication.

I venture to say that people who are used to getting their (literate) news in sound bytes, or even who actually read a paper newspaper, would be astonished if they could be set down into 1st century cities and how people would not only LISTEN attentively to preachers and messengers, but would be able to REPEAT, and repeat ACCURATELY, what they had heard, not just then but weeks, even years, later.

Years before our own educational system went to pot, children learned things ‘by rote’. They learned their alphabet, times tables, poetry, lists (anything from prepositions to the periodic table) BY ROTE. . .repeating over and over. . .

and I can tell you (as a 57 year old) that 50 years later I can still recite various poems and other ‘lists’ that I learned, WAY BACK THEN, by ‘rote’. . .and what I learned hasn’t’ morphed’ or changed.

So don’t worry that because modern society doesn’t keep straight what it ‘hears’ (and even there, a lot depends on the people. There are plenty of us left who listen carefully and remember carefully too), that it was ‘the case back when Jesus lived’. It wasn’t.

 

[jmr_1985]

Apparently journalists no longer fact check.

And have no problem generating national news over triple hearsay.

 

[McCartney]

First thing that jumps to me out of this article : " the Pope called the woman" OK so you are expecting me to believe that the Pope… Let me repeat “the POPE” grabbed a telephone (yes as if the pope has the time to do personal phone calls to individual lay people that he hardly know) and called this woman who he barely know??? I believe that as much as if my neighbor would tell me that Barack Obama grabbed a phone to tell him that the federal reserve is going to pass him million dollar check.

I m sorry but that besides being something written in a secular media that is constantly exaggerating and writing wrong thongs about the pope, makes absolutely no sense. Since when head if states called over the phone regular people to chat? Do you actually really believe that the pope is going to tell someone in a conversation OK go and have communion? I think that Obama calling my neighbor to say that a check from the federal reserve is on its way is more credible than this.

This pope is known for making random calls to random people. So it is very likely that he did call her. The exact conversation needs to be believed.